Why Try It? Low-stakes AI conversations in Spanish prepare students for interviews and difficult conversations around sensitive topics, with built-in language feedback.

What they’re doing: Tania and Cristina teach intermediate Spanish language courses where students sometimes discuss complex and sensitive topics. These conversations may be hard to start for students and native Spanish speakers may hesitate to engage. For instance, for many Spanish people, discussing the Franco dictatorship remained a taboo topic for decades. To prepare students for real interviews with Spanish-speaking professionals, the instructors developed an AI persona activity using Claude Projects. Students create their own Claude project using instructor-provided prompts, then conduct extended text-based conversations in Spanish with a persona who “lived” through a Spanish or Latin American dictatorship. Claude stays in character throughout, corrects grammar in context, and provides a detailed feedback report at the end covering linguistic strengths and areas for improvement. Students submit their full chat transcripts along with a metacognitive reflection addressing (in Spanish), the following questions:

If you use this AI Companion again in the future, what will you do differently to make better use of the conversation?

What's working: Students reported lower anxiety and felt more prepared for subsequent real interviews. The AI persona invited questions students would never dare ask a real person, such as inquiries about family members who were harmed by the dictatorship. Some students connected deeply with their personas, noting parallel family histories. Interestingly, Claude did not exhibit the sycophantic agreement patterns that concern many educators. When students made historically inaccurate claims or defended dictatorships, the persona pushed back, remaining factually grounded while staying in character. Students also appreciated real-time grammar correction embedded naturally in conversation, and the metacognitive reflection helped them identify patterns in their language use. Several students noted this was their first experience with AI prompting, opening their eyes to productive uses beyond simple answer-seeking.

One limitation (and interesting result) emerged around assignment length. The instructors initially required 30 conversational exchanges, but students engaged so deeply that sessions stretched to 90 minutes.The text-only format also meant students practiced reading and writing but not oral communication, which remains essential for real-world interviews.

What's next: Future iterations will use time-based parameters rather than interaction counts. Additionally, the faculty plan to integrate voice capabilities once Claude's speech features mature, which would push students further outside their comfort zone while practicing oral fluency. They also see potential for asynchronous courses, where students could complete speaking practice independently with recorded sessions available for instructor review. Tania has already adapted the activity for an intermediate course focused on environmental topics, demonstrating the approach's flexibility across content areas.